Philidor's Legacy
by Crow Skyler
Summary: Spinosaurs are making frequent attacks on boats. This clearly has to stop, and Biosyn is not helping matters any. Hammond calls in a favor. A kind of prequel to Jurassic Park III.
1. Part One: Prologue

Obligatory Disclaimer: I do not own Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Michael Crichton, or John Hammond and the like. Please don't sue me, as I have no money to take. (However, I do lay claim to the original characters portrayed in this story.) That is all. 

Part One: " _Queen's Gambit Declined_ "

"_What burns me," Hammond said, "is that we have made this wonderful park, this _fantastic _park, and our very first visitors are going through it like accountants, just looking for problems. They aren't experiencing the wonder of it all."_

"_That's their problem," Arnold said. "We can't make them experience wonder."_

--Jurassic Park.

Prologue

It had started in the late afternoon, the trouble, with Andro Diaz complaining of a stomach problem and stretching out to sleep it off. Then Enrique Flores, in a true act of chivalry, had become seasick all over the boat captain's wife, Penelope Guzman; he hadn't ever become seasick before. That left three fishers left with good stomaches—Ramos, Moreno and Soto. And in Almira Guzman's view, the three of them couldn't have fished a salmon out of a bucket.

"This is what I get," he muttered, "for being such a lousy husband. Nothing but trouble, and my wife is down below not speaking to anyone."

He hadn't wanted to bring her aboard the _Serpiente_, which was his most prized possession even with the heavy rust, because she hated the ocean, but she was pregnant and Guzman didn't trust the men of his neighborhood. Not at all.

"Look on the bright side," one of his fishermen remarked, "at least she's not talking."

"Shut up, Moreno," he snapped. "Fish, damnit."

"We're trying," Ramos said, dry. "Maybe the fish are frightened off by the rusty bottom of your boat, senor."

"I don't—"

"_I've got one!_" Soto, a dark and normally withdrawn man, cried. He tugged excitedly at his fishing pole; such was the fishing that this was exhilerating for all of them, and Guzman dropped down to the deck from the wheelhouse, grinning.

"It's about time," he said. "Pull it up, Soto."

Soto tugged, reeled, and tugged. He frowned. "It's a fighter, senor! Perhaps it is a—"

Without further warning, the fishing pole was suddenly tugged out of his hands, and it was sucked into the water as if pulled by a vaccuum. Soto cringed as Guzman turned around to glower at him, the other two fishers looking away awkwardly.

"_How are we supposed to fish now?_" he demanded. "Now we only have two poles, and you fish so poorly that we will never be able to buy another!"

"Senor…" Soto, abruptly, paused. "…did you feel that?"

Guzman blinked at him. "Feel what?"

"I felt something too," Ramos said, looking anxiously down at the green-brown water. "The fish is angry, I think."

Guzman grumbled something obscene, going back up to the wheelhouse; on the stairs, he looked back to glower a little more at his worthless fishermen, and then he noticed something—

The water behind the boat had become very, very dark, and shaped not like a cloud, but like a moving and organic mass underneath the surface. He had fleeting thoughts of sea monsters, of Godzilla, when Moreno screamed something and threw himself past Guzman on the stairs. He'd been looking into the water closely. Guzman looked at him confusedly as he cowered by the wheel.

"_Eyes_," was all the fisherman said, in Spanish broken by terror. "_Eyes._"

By now Diaz and Flores had awoken, looking thoroughly confused.

The hairs on Guzman's neck raised automatically, but the situation was not helped by the sudden reappearance of the heavily-pregnant Penelope, her soft brown eyes as wide as portals. Which she had probably been looking through, he reasoned.

"What is it?" she cried. "What is the thing beneath the water? It is like a great crocodile, Almira, please, we must go!"

He took only two more seconds to decide to start the engine. With a rusty roar, and a whimper from Moreno, the boat began to vibrate. But they were still anchored, Guzman realized, and pulling up the anchor required being especially close to the monster in the water.

Diaz realized that almost simultaneously and, bravely, he lurched towards what chain they had left before plunging his hands into the water to pull the rest up. Guzman mused that he probably hadn't got a solid look at the thing yet, like most of them, and sure enough, a moment later there was a soft noise of terror—

And then, quite suddenly, he was sucked into the water as well.

Yelling nonsensically, Flores went to the rail as well, and then his screams mingled with that of Penelope's. Guzman, his brain freezing up from a lack of experience with this sort of thing, threw himself down the stairs after yelling for Moreno to take over the wheel; the fisherman was only too glad to follow these orders.

The minute his hands plunged into the water, Guzman realized the water was stained red around the boat, and that the shape was moving far faster than a thing of its size should have been able to. He pulled more chain in the boat, his movements feverish. This was of the utmost importance, and he wished Flores would aid him, but Flores was near the bow, trembling at whatever sight he'd seen.

"Almira!" Penelope suddenly cried. "Look!"

Knowing he shouldn't, he did.

There was a great grey-green head on top of the water, not ten feet from where Guzman's hands were working as fast as they could. It was crocodillian and had two very large, expressive eyes that weren't as protruding as a crocodile's. And its gaze was fixed on him, eerily—he could almost sense what the creature was thinking, and yet he couldn't at all. It was an alien and unreadable stare. The head alone was at least eight feet long.

Guzman had no words for it. No curses, no exclamations. He worked and it watched him. Strangely, the boat behind him was silent as well, Penelope having stopped screaming with her cry. Not even Moreno was whimpering.

He could see the anchor when the head began to move—forward, back under the water, towards Guzman and the boat. Lunging like a snake's strike towards where the anchor was coming up out of the depths. He had no time to react when the great maw fastened around it and then kept going.

With a jolt like a car crash, Guzman was suddenly in the water, dragged by the chain in his numb fingers.

Under the water he was in a completely alien enviornment, out of his element entirely; there came an instinctive rush of fear at this. Coupled with the terror that _he was in the water with the monster_, he was almost completely paralyzed.

Now he could see all of it. It was monstrous, at least fourty feet long, with a strange fin that curled up its back like something Guzman had once seen illustrated in a story book, and the way it was built he knew it was primarily a land creature. In fact, he was prepared to swear that this thing was something prehistoric, something that had existed millions of years ago, and that came as a tremendous shock.

Land creature or no, it moved very well under the water, dragging the boat by its anchor for a few feet and then stopping again, whirling around to bite at the feebly turning motor. Blood spewed from its jaws at the movement, the blades having cut into its flesh; the roar it sent off caused Guzman to lose all of the remaining warmth in his body.

He had one last coherent thought: _Penelope._

She was waving at him, crying freely, while the fisherman bustled about doing nothing and everything at once; panic reigned on board his boat. Guzman began to swim, slowly and awkwardly, then gaining confidence. He made his way towards the boat, though it was drifting, and stopped as a displeasured purr rent the air—and then stopped.

The motor had been destroyed.

On the other side of the _Serpiente_, the thing was moving again, slamming its head against the side of the boat. He could hear his craft groaning and whimpering under the strain of it until there was a violent _kbang_ sound, and Guzman felt his heart sink. That was surely the side becoming breached.

"Penelope!" he yelled. "Penelope!"

To what end he was calling to her, he didn't know. But communication at this dire time was suddenly very important, somehow, and Guzman continued to call. It was only a few minutes and most of the boat was under the water, the fishermen yelling and screaming, Penelope crying as she swam towards him—

"_Almira!_"

Behind her, he could see Moreno disappear under the waves, and then Flores, and then Ramos. That left Soto, characteristically silent during the whole debacle, who swam alongside his wife loyally, despite barely knowing her. Guzman felt a surge of gratitude as he struggled to join their position in the water. But there wasn't a lot of enthusiasm to his movements, because the monster under the waves was moving again, towards them.

He felt his arms clasp around the struggling figure of his wife, pregnant with their first and only child, and heard the fanatic breathing of Soto, and that was the last thing he was conscious of, right before the entire world became red.


	2. Part One: Chapter One

Obligatory Disclaimer: I do not own Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Michael Crichton, or John Hammond and the like. Please don't sue me, as I have no money to take. (However, I do lay claim to the original characters portrayed in this story.) That is all. 

Part One: " _Queen's Gambit Declined_ "

"_What burns me," Hammond said, "is that we have made this wonderful park, this _fantastic _park, and our very first visitors are going through it like accountants, just looking for problems. They aren't experiencing the wonder of it all."_

"_That's their problem," Arnold said. "We can't make them experience wonder."_

--Jurassic Park.

Chapter One

Two weeks in the hot Montana desert had yielded Kari two epiphanies: one, Montana was the best _and_ worst place to dig, and two, she really hated sunscreen. Eyeing her near-blood-red hand, a casualty of the situation, she hardly looked up when one of her paleontology students—she couldn't recall his name—approached his Irish professor eagerly for the third time in an hour.

"Doctor Wolfe?" His smile was faltering uncertainly. "I think I found something."

Normally, she would have only been too happy to go down and see what it was, but this kid's last two discoveries had been a funny rock and an ancient candy wrapper. "Again?"

He—Stoppard, she thought his name was—had the decency to look mildly embaressed. "For real this time, Doctor."

Kari unwillingly hauled herself to her feet, like a mother who was sick of looking after her children. "Well, let's see it, then."

"It's not a wrapper," Stoppard assured her, leading the way through the hot copper sand towards where he'd been digging. Around them, the multi-colored backs of the other paleontology students worked patiently; most of them had found something, even a minute something, by now. Stoppard was one of the last two discover something, even in the area that Kari had chosen specifically for its richness in smaller fossils.

She couldn't resist a grin at his reassurance. "I'm delighted to 'ear that."

His 'find' was a rock that stuck out of the butterscotch rockface that surrounded the dig, like bad acne, and Kari was quick to jump up onto Stoppard's ledge to examine it. "It's certainly not a wrapper, lad," she chuckled to herself, running her slender, long fingers over the visible edges, occaisionally scratching a bit; then, she grinned again.

"Aye, yeh've got somethin'. I can't tell ye what. Be careful when ye go to sand it down."

Stoppard laughed excitedly. "Yes, doctor. Thank you, doctor."

"Aye, aye," Kari remarked boredly, dismissing herself from his position and going back to her own, the chair under the blue-white awning. She was grateful for his enthusiasm, however, which a lot of the students didn't seem to have, particularily not when they'd seen her for the first time. Kari Wolfe was a lanky, fair-skinned woman of medium height with deathly pale blue eyes and shoulder-length black hair. She had the look of a person who was constantly torn between exhaustion and boredom, mostly due to her insomnia. Her students, with mostly affection, had taken to calling her Long John Silver in private because of the slight limp on her right leg.

She didn't mind too much. At least they weren't cursing their newest teacher for being a brainless idiot, which was what she'd expected they'd do.

However, she _did_ mind the white-haired man who had taken over her chair, his own blue eyes twinkling as she came closer to the awning. He looked like something out of an old, dusty book, an illustration to a story that children groaned at when they had to read.

"John," she said tersely, "what have I told ye about showing up unannounced?"

He chuckled merrily. "That you would flog me and bury me in your dig?"

Kari nodded, raising an eyebrow. "Aye. I … wasn't aware that you were well enough to travel."

"Does that mean you won't flog me?" John Hammond asked her, scottish brogue uncharacteristically light.

"I'm still debating it," Kari drawled, leaning against the inside of one of the awning's legs. "So what brings ye to Montana?"

"I was visiting an old friend and decided to see another while I was at it." He smiled, gesturing at her students. "You really don't mind, do you? Come now. A break from your work?"

"Not really." Kari smiled back at her previous employer, unable to help it; John Hammond had that affect on people. "Alan Grant did, though."

"Who said I went to see Doctor Grant?" he asked, looking taken aback.

She grinned. "Grant did, he called me yesterday."

"So you've been leading me on, you knew I was well to travel." Hammond sighed. "Was this a surprise at all? I still remember the 'surprise' birthday party where you could hear us all breathing in the dark of your office."

"No, it's a surprise," she assured him, scrutinizing his appearance. "I see yeh've managed to mostly beat the cancer."

"It will take more than a tumor to bring me down, my girl."

"O' course. I suspect the tumor wasn't sarcastic enough—sarcasm always flustered ye," she replied, smirking a little.

"Yes," he chortled, "and so here we are, talking about sarcastic tumors."

Kari looked out on her students, suddenly remembering that she was still a professor of Montana University. "Yes, here we are."

"What did Grant say to you?" Hammond asked, his tone changing from light to pessimistic, from joy to longsuffering.

"That ye were full of more suicidal ideas, and that yer nephew's demise hadn't phased ye," Kari sighed. "Is that why you're here, John? Because Grant refused yer mysterious offer?"

Hammond sighed, toying with his bamboo cane. "He told you about the fishermen being attacked?"

"If ye'll do me the favor, John," Kari narrowed her eyes at him, "and recall, I was thoroughly against the idea of the spinosaurs. They're vicious and nasty, not like the tyrannosaurs at all—Wu likely made a mistake with their DNA."

He watched a student brush dust away from part of a severed backbone, but his eyes were mostly distant. "Again, Kari, it wasn't in your authority. You were in charge of keeping the animals on Isla Sorna, not deciding what animals to bring out. But I suspect that you were right."

"Ye only think that because of what's going on in Costa Rica. If they were behaving themselves—" Kari faltered, for Hammond had looked back at her, his expression unfathomable. "They're yer pet dinosaurs, Hammond. Admit it. You think I should go out there and yell at a spinosaur that it won't get its treats if it continues."

"I certainly do not," he bit off tersely. "What I am _proposing_ is that someone go down there and study their behavior. See if there's something that can be built to contain them, or behavior that can be slowly culled. You were the closest to them, Kari. I still remember the day the baby bit your leg."

Kari chuckled darkly. "Don't we all. Oh, yeah, in that case, why not?" she drawled, sarcasm dripping off of the words. "I'll go down there, swim with them, put them on Sigmund Freud's couch and see what they're thinking, and then we'll build a metal net around 'Sorna and they'll all be one happy family."

"That's not funny, Kari."

"No," she agreed, "it isn't. If I was so close to them, why did ye go to Grant first? No, don't say anything—it's because ye know my answer, isn't it? I was yer initial choice but ye know I'll never do it, so ye went to poor Grant, who's losing funding faster than some species are going extinct."

Hammond bit his lower lip for a moment, remarking, "You know me too well, my girl."

"I'm not doing it. No more suicidal ideas, John. Let the Costa Rican government deal with it."

"Kari—they'll _shoot_ them, _kill_ them."

She nodded, nonplussed. "Oh yes, I know, that's the human reaction to anything hostile. But they're animals 'behaving badly' in our eyes, aren't they? In _mine_ they're only animals doing what comes naturally, but the Costa Rican government doesn't have that luxury, John; they need to keep their people safe."

"If their _people_ would stop going in so close, this wouldn't happen!" Hammond said, looking, for the first time in a long while, defeated. She wasn't sure why he'd come all the way to her to do this, but it was slightly touching, to know that the Scottish millionaire had chosen her as his last advisor. "My people tell me there are reports of paragliders—paragliders! Going close! And no one stops this behavior, Kari, it just keeps going on and on until something bad happens! And then there's a lawsuit, of course."

"Yer lawsuit collection is getting pretty impressive by now, I'm sure." Kari shook her head. "It's in the human nature to taunt death, and then our nature again to act indignantly when it bothers to happen. Nothing can change that, John, not you or anyone else."

Hammond glared at the floor. "So that's what I do, then. Let them exterminate those animals and let the greatest discover of our age die."

"Maybe it would be better," she said. "For all of us."

He looked back up. "I can't do that."

Kari smiled, but it was faint; the light of the desert reflected in her pale eyes. "I know ye can't, John, ye just came for a sane suggestion from an insane paleontologist."

"You're a bit like my daughter, you know. I feel that way." He smiled, his own smile bright and fragile. "I've seen you graduate and go into your first few jobs, and I've seen you succeed. They're aren't enough people like you in this world."

She frowned a bit. "How do ye figure that?"

"Levelheaded, kind." Hammond stood up, sighing. "Thank you for listening, Kari. I suppose I should let you go back to being a proper teacher. Congratulations on that, by the way."

"Thanks, John. Ye take care of yerself. Okay?" Kari patted his shoulder warmly. "Ye're only recovering, it's not good to travel so much."

He laughed softly. "Now you sound like my real daughter. Yes, Kari. Thank you."

She watched him go over the sandy hill, towards where all of the cars were parked, and knew that whatever had dug into John Hammond's mind was far from over. This wouldn't be the last she'd hear from him. She recalled the begging conversation to go and document the animals of Isla Sorna, and then the huffy reply that that was all right, he'd gotten Sarah Harding anyway.

Kari went back to her teaching post, towards a student who was waving a hand to get her attention.

No, it wasn't over.


	3. Part One: Chapter Two

Obligatory Disclaimer: I do not own Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Michael Crichton, or John Hammond and the like. Please don't sue me, as I have no money to take. (However, I do lay claim to the original characters portrayed in this story.) That is all. 

Part One: " _Queen's Gambit Declined_ "

"_What burns me," Hammond said, "is that we have made this wonderful park, this _fantastic _park, and our very first visitors are going through it like accountants, just looking for problems. They aren't experiencing the wonder of it all."_

"_That's their problem," Arnold said. "We can't make them experience wonder."_

--Jurassic Park.

Chapter Two

It was a surprisingly cold night, but then, the sea was always cold for Victor Razmosa, the entire two times he'd actually been on it. When he'd been younger he'd gotten seasick and his father, disgusted, had refused to let him come along for other fishing trips. That had been just fine for Victor; he hated the ocean.

He hated it especially now, dark and unwelcoming as it was. All Razmosa knew was that he and his group of makeshift terrorists were due to land in Puerto Jimenez, where they would meet another group and then get final orders as to what they would be doing for the next week. It would be bloody, it would be destructive, and there would be mourning.

But of course, none of them reached Puerto Jimenez, and as he watched the monstrous grey fin come towards him, all he could think about was strangling his brother to death at the age of fifteen.

Kimball Razmosa was getting back at him.

* * *

It was a tentative knock that interrupted her thinking. Stewing over past events. Things she was proud of, things that were painful, and things that had been wiped from the history books with a bloody hand. Celest Razmosa was an elderly woman now, but she had once been a young, vital young woman who had led a million tiny revolutions around the world. She could only sit, now, and wait for a smaller revolution to come about.

"Come in," she called, distant. Around her, the room was nearly dark, but the ornate furniture and decorations—reminiscent of an earlier century—glittered under the dim lighting of the two lit oil lamps.

Her aide entered the room, a tiny Asian woman with a tight face and a penchant for cracking her knuckles during tense moments. Her real name was almost unpronounceable; Celest, the patriarch of the Razmosa family, called her Santos.

"Here is the letter," she said, handing her the legal document with a trembling hand. Celest was more than aware that her aide and her youngest son, Victor, had been carrying on an affair under her nose. "From the Costa Rican government."

Celest waved it aside. "What about the International Genetics Corporation?" she demanded. "Have they sent word?"

"They have," Santos admitted, withdrawing another paper from her pocket as though it was a hot potato. "But it isn't much."

"Let me see."

She turned out to be correct; the letter was a formal, but recycled, apology about the incident of their "genetic creations" attacking a loved one, and that they wished the whole thing could have never happened. It was obviously designed to send one into grief, to forget about the company that had sent it; Celest was furious.

One did _not _anger Celest Razmosa.

"Give me the phone," she ordered, tight-lipped. "And tell Kenton Dona that he has one more favor to do for me before he goes into retirement."

Santos hovered anxiously after handing her the ornate, black phone. "What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I'm going to make InGen wish it had never even heard of dinosaurs." Celest smiled without humor when she heard a distracted woman answer the call. "Yes, I'm a reporter for the Los Angeles Times? Katie Jackson. Yes, thank you. I would like to know who heads your corporation at the moment. A transition, indeed? Your last has died? Who is the active president? … John Hammond. Thank you."

Phone calls were made, clips were loaded. It was a sleek silver cell phone that contacted the gothic-looking Spaniard Kenton Dona and gave him the exact orders, and by then John Hammond was in bed reading a book by Edgar Allen Poe.

* * *

"…and for homework, please read chapters five to six and do exercises A, D and E on those pages. I expect the exercises to be on my desk next tuesday," Kari ended, dusting chalk from her fingers; she smiled at the class, knowing they were keen to be gone and babbling in the corridors. "That is all. Have a good weekend."

Grinning at the sudden explosion of noise in the room, which had previously been silent and full of attentive gazes, she picked up the eraser and began to wipe all of her writing off of the chalkboard, only turning around when a very tentative voice cut through.

"Um, Doctor Wolfe?"

It was Alexander Stoppard again; she knew it before she turned around. The brown-haired, blue-eyed young man was clutching his books like they were his only protection against the world. _And perhaps they are,_she thought.

"Yes?"

"Um, I was confused by this page, where Venright says that the tyrannosaurus was probably a scavenger and could have crushed its ribcage by falling down?" He smiled hopelessly. "How can you do that by just falling down?"

Kari grinned. "He's _theorizin'_ that the bone structure of the tyrannosaurus' chest was very frail, not built to withstand a lot of pressure. That fits in with the recent, popular theory of it being a scavenger."

Stoppard nodded, smartly, then frowned at her tone. "You disagree?"

"I agree with the scavenger theory, but if fallin' down would effectively kill it… not a very good design, is it?"

He laughed. "No, I don't think so either."

Kari tried not to think about all of the times she'd seen _her _tyrannosaurs fall down, surviving to get up again and take a swipe at whatever had caused it to fall. "Is that all?"

Stoppard nodded, padding away nervously. "Yes. Thank you, Doctor."

"Not at all," she said, flipping open her cell phone to take in the fact that she'd missed one call, and from a somewhat familiar number. "John. Thought so." More begging, more pleading? Or was it something else? Kari picked up her bag and dialed back, curious.

"—uh hello?"

She had to think fast to identify the other voice. It was his daughter, and realization was slightly disconcerting. "Judy Hammond?"

"Yes, who's calling?"

"This is Kari Wolfe. Yer father was callin' me earlier, I think."

"Oh, Doctor Wolfe! I didn't recognize your voice. Thank goodness, no, that was me calling with my father's phone. I couldn't figure out how to leave a message." Judy Hammond sounded scared and flustered, a combination that didn't bode well for the situation. "He's been asking for you."

Kari sighed, ending up in her upstairs office, where she flung her bag into her chair. "What's happened?"

"It's been all over the news, Doctor, so many camera crews—someone tried to kill him last night. He took two bullets, but somehow he pulled through, even his killer left him for dead," Judy explained quickly. "Did you…?"

"I don't watch the news, Ms. Hammond, I'm sorry to 'ave missed it." She began to pace, as she often did when talking about something of this caliber. "Do you know who tried to?"

There was a great deal of noise in the background; beeping and people's voices, as she was no doubt in the hospital.

"My father does," Judy admitted. "I don't know why or how, I'm not in the know… I think he wants to tell you, Doctor Wolfe. Can you come?"

Kari blinked. _Right now? _"Er."

"Please, Doctor, I'm worried about my father and he _does _consider you family."

Feeling more than a little flattered, though she was aware that the Hammond family was not what you called tight-knit, Kari asked, "Where are you?"

"New York. I can send you the specifics if you've got computer access."

Relaying her email address—even knowing she would later regret it, Kari nodded. "Okay. I can be there tomorrow, at the earliest."

"Thank you, Doctor. I know my father will appreciate that."

Shock had not worn off when she disconnected the call.

* * *

A few calls and a restless night later yielded the information that not too many were still loyal to InGen's former CEO. On the plane, Kari made use of the pay-and-use phones and made a call to Alan Grant—one of the few people who would understand the current situation. But he was exhausted after a fruitless night of rustling for funding, and took the news with a light hand. It appeared that Ian Malcolm was still making the anti-InGen circuits, and that meant that _he _wouldn't come to Hammond's bedside, nor try to help with any other type of effort.

Considering that her friendship with Hammond had given her a fractured spirit, a nasty ankle injury, and not a lot of experience she could put on a resume, Kari often wondered why on earth she was on the plane in the first place. Phone call from Judy Hammond or not. But Hammond had been there for her when very few others had been, and that still meant something to her.

Before falling asleep, she made one last phone call to her only friend at the university: her teaching assistant.

"H'llo?"

Todd Hamilton's voice was barely there on the other side; it was nine o'clock back home, she mused, and he went to bed remarkably early.

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead," she chuckled jokingly. "It's Kari."

"Oh, hi, Kari." He paused. "Is something up?"

Kari closed her eyes. "Ye might say that. I need ye to teach class for a day or so, if that's alrigh'. Something _has _come up, and it's come up in New York of all places."

"New York, wow. Friends in high places," Todd laughed sleepily. "Umm. Sure, I can teach, what were you working on?"

"Last lesson was on very recent theories—the tyrannosaur falling on its chest and killin' itself, for instance. I was using it to explain how ye put a theory together." She bit her lower lip, grinning. "Watch out for that german kid in the back, he's aimin' to be the next Robert Burke."

Todd groaned, "Yeah, I've talked to him a few times, he's certainly got the ego. So continue on with that?"

"Yeah, ask 'em what they'd like to do as well, answer questions, let them out early. They'll like that, it's midterms already for their other classes."

"Oh, that's right," he said. Kari heard the sound of paper rustling around. "Er, when's the midterm test you're giving them?"

Valiantly, she ignored the squabbling baby two seats down. "Relax, it's next week, and I'll be back by then."

"What about your cats, who's feeding the boys?"

Kari had three—one by personal choice, the other two having come along and made themselves a part of the family. Copei, Walkeri and Aegypt usually hated anyone else who attempted to feed them in Kari's absense; they even despized Todd. But there was a girl in the neighborhood who fed all the strays, and Kari had felt that someone of that kind of heart would be all right to trust. She'd fed the cats two trips before, and Kari had again called upon her.

"Susan Linchley, the girl three houses down from mine. She likes the little boys almost as much as I do, I think," Kari chuckled.

Todd laughed, "That sounds like a dangerous kind of affliction."

"Watch it, Hamilton, I can still fly back and kick yer arse."

"Right, well, have a safe flight, Kari."

"Thanks," she sighed. "Go ahead and call me if you have any questions, I'll be leaving my cell phone on."

"How's the new one holding up?"

"Better than the last one that Doctor Grant managed to fry." Kari grinned. "They're _still_ not sure how he destroyed it. Poor Alan, it confused him so badly. But anyhow, watch out for the german kid and try not to stress yerself."

"Your class is safe with me."

"G'bye, Todd."

* * *

When she arrived in New York, which was fittingly covered in a grizzly sheen of rain, Kari had her usual flight headache and a growling stomach; she'd not bothered to eat on the plane, considering the choice had been between lasagna and a wilting salad. Finding her usual cheap hotel that she booked for paleontological circuits, the _Dawn's Light_, which looked as blindingly green and sterile as usual, she made her way almost instantly for the hospital, Manhatten General. She didn't bother to eat.

_If he's in a hospital_, she thought, _he could be at greater risk. I hope they have a lot of security around him._

Kari's worries turned out to be meaningless; when she arrived at the hospital, she had to present a driver's liscense just to get in, and security was swarming the floor that she was told John Hammond was on.

"He's expecting you," the nurse behind the front desk said, before going back to whatever her duties were. Kari barely paid her any mind—she met two familiar faces in the elevator to go up to the third floor of the building, and both were looking rather tense before they recognized her.

"Doctor Wolfe! Mom said you were coming—" Lex Murphy, looking a proper young lady in her navy blue and warm-looking dress, broke off when her brother, Tim, smacked her shoulder.

"Grandpa's been waiting for you," the younger one said. "He says you're here to do something for him, is that right?"

Kari blinked. Do something for him? What, did he think an assassination would change her mind?

"Maybe," she said, smiling. "It's great to see ye both again."

Trouble was, she was afraid it already _had_ changed her mind.

John Hammond didn't look too bad. A bandage here, a bandage there, and a dazed and glassy look to his eyes that came with being heavily medicated. Whatever pain he'd been in was gone, Kari only hoped that they weren't overdoing the strength of whatever painkiller they'd prescribed; Hammond had, in the past, grown immune to several types of medicine because of improper dosage.

"Kari," he breathed, smiling like he was Father Christmas, "Lex, Tim. …Where's your mother?"

"She's making a call, grandpa," Lex informed him, sitting next to his bed with dignity.

Hammond said, "Good," and beckoned Kari closer. She did so, shaking her head.

"John, who did this to ye? Why?"

"Mmm. You remember the Razmosa family?" He smiled grimly at her blink of recognition. "Well, it appears I'm somehow responsible for the death of their youngest son. A spinosaur, it appears, attacked the boat he was on."

Kari shook her head again. "That just means they were too close to the island—it's their fault, like ye've said. But of course there's no way to prove the Razmosa's are in on it, is there?"

"I'm afraid not."

Tim looked from one to the other, frowning. "Who're the Razmosa's?"

"They're Costa Rican gangsters," Kari explained, sighing and also taking a seat like Lex. "One of the oldest families in the government. They have some kind of legal cover—the patriarch of the family is an official of some kind—but they deal mostly with gangs and terrorism and government destabilization. Ye met them once at a party, Tim, although ye were pretty young."

"Kari was there too," Hammond noted; "It was for Jurassic Park, a toast to how prosperous it would make Costa Rica on the world map. I believe the guests I brought was your mother, you two, Kari, and Muldoon."

Kari grinned. "Muldoon wasn't very thrilled to be there, he left somewhat early, but I did manage to have a conversation with Celest Razmosa, the current head of the family. A very interestin' woman, but"—she threw Hammond a look—"very interested in the art of revenge."

"So this woman tried to kill grandpa?" Lex said, bristling. "How can she do that, it's not like he told the dinosaur to attack her son!"

Hammond patted her hand consolingly. "Some things that shouldn't be… are, Lex. Especially with the Razmosa family. Which brings me to what I wanted to ask you, Kari."

She tried to look as though she didn't know what was coming.


End file.
